Forums

MatchFinder Update - November 6

Kelly Dewald — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:14:00 GMT

Just a reminder that MatchFinder was updated the week of November 6. In The Raiser's Edge, you can download the update to refresh your MatchFinder database files. Remember that your MatchFinder Online service is updated daily so you'll always see the most up to date details for matching gift corporations out there.

For more info on updating MatchFinder in The Raiser's Edge review Knowledgebase solution BB414650.

Upcoming Web Seminars... November & December

Kelly Dewald — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:34:00 GMT

We here at Target Analytics understand your need to get the most out of your fundraising and prospect research efforts. With that in mind, we have several new events scheduled to help you do just that! Join us for these upcoming online client events:

How to Build a Strong Planned Giving Program - Difficult economic times can produce uncertain fundraising efforts A strong planned giving program, no matter when established, engages and celebrates the generosity of our organizations’ supporters. Increase your knowledge about planned giving donors and their behavior in a slow economy; examine your legacy gift program’s markers for success and set your sights on a brighter future.
November 6, 2009; 2-3:00pm EDT ~ Katherine Swank Register Now

How to Talk to Donors About Planned Gifts - Donors want to make a difference in the world they live in, both now and in the future. So successful planned giving programs start with simple messaging and evolve into life-long relationships with constituents. Join Katherine Swank to learn how to start your planned giving program today by throwing out the law school admissions form on your desk and learn to talk with donors about their dreams and wishes for your organization!
November 19, 2009; 2-3:00pm EDT ~ Katherine Swank Register Now

Planned Giving Marketing Strategies - Once we know the characteristics of planned giving donors, how do we market the planned giving option to these prospects in an efficient and effective manner? From seminars and direct mail, to testimonials and the Internet, which strategies are best suited for your type of organization? How is planned giving marketing successfully integrated with other ongoing development functions? How do we know when our efforts are successful? These questions and more will be addressed and answered in this session with Lawrence Henze, Managing Director of Target Analytics! Learn now to incorporate proven planned giving marketing tactics into your existing development efforts.
November 11, 2009; 2-3:00pm EDT ~ Lawrence Henze Register Now

Ideas that work: Building a strategy for prospect research

Kelly Dewald — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:25:00 GMT

Erin McHugh Saif, Target Analytics Product Manger, was recently feautured in Philanthropy Journal sharing ideas that help nonprofits reach their long-term fundraising goals.

"Fundraisers everywhere are being asked to implement bold strategies to ensure program stability. Add to the mix the fact that donor and prospect information changes at lightning speed, and you can understand why fundraising professionals are feeling anxious. Organizations that have implemented analytics and prospect research best practices are weathering this environment better than most. Good use of analytics brings stability to the development office, builds accountability with leadership and board members, and successfully uncovers new prospects with strong affinity for your mission." Read the entire Philanthropy Journal article.

Upcoming Web Seminars 11/9 - 11/13

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Several times a week, we offer free, hour-long web seminars on our website. The seminars usually focus on Blackbaud products or best practices for nonprofits.

To register, select Web Seminars from the Events menu on our website, find a seminar you want to attend, and click Register Now. Once you submit the enrollment form, you’ll receive an email with instructions for viewing the online presentation, as well as the telephone access number. If you’d like to enroll for additional seminars, click Continue after you fill out the enrollment form.

Here are some of the web seminars coming up next week:

November 10:
There Ought to Be a Law: Best Fundraising Practices We Probably Don’t Practice, 3:00 p.m. ET: Learn how to break away from practices that are less than the best and seek new levels of success for your organization.

November 11:
Maximize Reach and Revenue with "Friends Asking Friends" Online Events, 1:00 p.m. ET: Join us to see how Blackbaud Sphere Events makes it easy to set up and run one event or hundreds, through standalone microsites or fully integrated into your current website.

November 12:
Social Networking Strategy for Nonprofits, 2:00 p.m. ET: We'll answer the key questions you need to understand this important trend, evaluate projects and opportunities within your organization, and participate in the process of constructing your own social networking strategy.

Time to Upgrade – Moving Beyond Blackbaud NetSolutions, 2:00 p.m. ET: Join us to learn about Blackbaud's Internet Solutions and how they can provide you with all the functionality you currently have, but with a more up-to-date look and feel, plus added functionality.

November 13:
Uncover Your Best Prospects with Target Analytics, 2:00 p.m. ET: Target Analytics offers powerful tools to provide you the up-to-date information you need to find your best prospects and boost fundraising by segmenting prospects to reveal who’s most likely to give.

Have a super weekend!

Comment Reviewing in FAWeb

Katie Infinger — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:58:00 GMT

Faculty Access for the Web comment reviewing allows peers, department heads, administrators, or advisors to review and approve teachers' gradebook comments before they are posted to The Education Edge. It's like having your own staff of editors to ensure you deliver the highest quality and most accurate comments! Let's take a closer look:

Before staff can review and approve comments, you must complete the following:

Decide who will have rights to review. To give a faculty member rights to comments, mark the appropriate school checkboxes on his record's Restrictions 1 tab.
Assign the appropriate group of reviewers for each school. The Supervisor selects the group on the Miscellaneous page in Faculty Access for the Web setup. The following groups are available for review:
- Peer reviewers are faculty/staff members with rights to access Gradebooks for the school in which a class is taught.
- Administrators are faculty/staff members whose security records include administrator rights for Faculty Access for the Web. You grant administrator rights by marking the Has administrator rights in Faculty Access for the Web checkbox on the Online Security tab of a user's security record in Administration.
- Advisors are faculty/staff members with the Current Advisor checkbox marked on the Bio 1 tab of their Faculty/Staff records.
- Department heads are faculty/staff members whose records list a Position on the Bio 2 tab that matches the position selected for department heads. You can select the position that designates department heads on the NetClassroom Registration Setup page in Configuration and the Miscellaneous page in Faculty Access for the Web Setup.
Set up teachers' gradebooks for review.
- If comment reviewers are based on peer review, teachers must select the faculty members who will review their Gradebook comments:
  1. In Gradebook, click Setup.
  2. Click Reviewer Setup on the navigation bar.
  3. Select the teachers to review the comments. Select Yes in the Can edit column if the teacher can edit comments.
- To make identifying grades with comments easier, click Customize on the Gradebook page and mark the Indicate Comments Present checkbox.
- When a comment is ready for review, teachers must change the Comment Status on the comment screen to Ready for Review.

Now that comment review is set up, it's time to get those comments report card ready! To review comments, the reviewer teacher logs into Faculty Access for the Web, selects Gradebook, and then clicks the Comment Approval tab. He can review comments by Course, Teacher, or Student. If he has edit rights, he can edit the comment in Comment box, or, if he only has reviewer rights, he can enter his comments in the Reviewer's Notes box.

To complete the review process, the reviewer teacher changes the comment status to Approved and then saves and closes the comment.

The Ledger Lowdown: Vendor Tax ID Woes

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:49:00 GMT

Hey blog readers! We are often asked why Accounts Payable users are not able to update a vendor tax ID, so I thought this would be a helpful topic to talk about today.

Beginning in The Financial Edge version 7.70 we implemented personal information security. This additional security option allows you to specify which users can view and edit information such as Social Security Number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and vendor tax IDs. To ensure this personal information is secure, the personal information options are not marked when you create a new security group or update from a version prior to 7.70.

To be able to update the field, adjust the Shared Component Personal Information options in the users' security group. For complete steps, take a look at Knowledgebase solution BB181316.

Make sure you only assign rights to personal information for users that need to access it in order to perform their job. If you are not sure what rights are appropriate, check out What is Blackbaud's recommendation for personal information best practices?

Talk to you soon!

Target Analytics... Break it Down for Me (Part 2 - WealthPoint)

Kelly Dewald — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:52:00 GMT

On more than one occasion, you've probably asked yourself (or a customer support analyst) "...what is the difference between The Researcher's Edge and ProspectPoint? What about ResearchPoint and WealthPoint? Well, what services does my organization have? I'm confused..." We hear you and want to make your experience with Target Analytics much less confusing. Over the past few years, we've undergone some changes here at Blackbaud. From Blackbaud Analytics to Target Analytics, a Blackbaud Company, we've created new partnerships through acquisitions and mergers, and our product menu has changed to meet the needs of our nonprofit customers. Because we do offer different products and services, depending on your organizational goals and needs, we want to make sure you're clear on the products you're currently using.

WealthPoint (wealth screening services): How well do you know your donors and prospects? Could you report on their salaries, private business and public stock holdings, real estate purchases, and other wealth characteristics in a matter of minutes? If not, that's where Target Analytics steps in to assist in your research efforts. Oh WealthPoint, how we love thee. WealthPoint has many faces; you've seen it in The Raiser's Edge and The Researcher's Edge, where you can run searches on your prospects and donors. In ResearchPoint, search from a prospect record (receive auto-refresh of data sources) and run searches for groups of records at a time. If you don't use Blackbaud software, we can even return a file with the results of your wealth screenings (to be imported into your fundraising system). Many organizations employ our wealth screening services by sending us large lists for batch screenings, and other use a subscription to screen donors and prospects at their own page.

So, to recap, WealthPoint is an asset and philanthropic history tool that allows you to plug in names and addresses to find many different wealth data points. Learn more about our wealth data sources. Check back for other posts in the series, including WealthPoint OnTime, custom modeling, and ResearchPoint.

NTEN Webinar Links - The State of Online Fundraising

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:05:00 GMT

Later today I'll be hosting a webinar called "The State of Online Fundraising" as part of NTEN member appreciation month. It's free to NTEN members and Blackbaud customers.

My presentation is full of lots of information, metrics, benchmarks, and more. Below are some of the reports, research, and links that I reference during the session:

These links should give you plenty to think about and take action on when building better online fundraising programs. And here are my slides from the presentation:

The State of Online Fundraising

View more presentations from Steve MacLaughlin.

I'm looking forward to other sessions like this in the future.

ResearchPoint v1.6 is released - November 9!

Kelly Dewald — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:44:00 GMT

New Batch Types

We significantly improved the data import process in this release, including the ability to edit or append constituent data, modeling scores, educational history, and giving summary information.

To accommodate these improvements, we added several new batch types:

Constituent Update Batch: Updates and adds records based on information included in an import file or batch. When importing, to identify existing records, the import process compares the record ID included in the import file to system lookup IDs and alternate lookup IDs.
Modeling and Propensity Update Batch: Updates constituent modeling and propensity data based on information included in an import file or batch. When importing, to identify existing records, the import process compares the record ID included in the import file to system lookup IDs and alternate lookup IDs.
Giving Summary Update Batch: Updates constituent giving history data based on information included in an import file or batch. When importing, to identify existing records, the import process compares the record ID included in the import file to system lookup IDs and alternate lookup IDs.
Education History Update Batch: Updates constituent education history data based on information included in an import file or batch. This batch type also allows you to update spouse education information. When importing, to identify existing records, the import process compares the record ID included in the import file to system lookup IDs and alternate lookup IDs.

All four batch types are available in Batch Entry. For more information, see the Batch Entry and the Import chapters in Data Management.

New Fields in Query

The Prospect manager, Research status, WealthPoint search date, and WealthPoint updates enabled fields are now available in Query.

Research Group Report Added

You can now prepare and print prospect research reports for all members of a research group.

Automatic Logout Disabled

In ResearchPoint 1.6, we disabled the automatic logout feature to improve usability. To ensure data security and privacy, application users do need to make sure they close their Web browser after using ResearchPoint on a public machine.

11/4 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:32:00 GMT

We want to know how you use the Forums - please take our poll in Forums Feedback.

Here are last week's most popular Forums posts as well as unanswered posts:

Most Popular Topics:

Unanswered Posts:

Shopping Has Never Been More Fun and Rewarding

Jay Love — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:02:00 GMT

Obviously, everyone has enjoyed shopping in one form or another whether it is on-line or in a regular store. From the early part of this decade until last year the on-line shopping statistics were growing rapidly. They are still growing but the pace has slowed according to Forrester Research. Perhaps the most telling aspect of the recent results in the on-line shopping world is that the average transaction has dropped slightly.

I truly believe that on-line shopping will swing back into high growth mode again next year. It will hard to stop it with the large growth occurring in broad band usage as shown below.

Such stats and insights are important to know for any non-profit organization with a web site presence. (Let's hope the percentage of NPO's with web sites is now near 100%!)

The reason I say it is vital to know, is due to the key role shopping can play in increasing the bond between your constituents and your NPO. Any of your supporters who have embraced your mission are more than likely to want to display their loyalty via items with your logo or cause outlined. In addition, this can be a superb auxiliary source of revenue for your non-profit.

Earlier this year eTapestry made this potentially key part of many of our customer's web sites come to life via our new shopping cart module. This great addition to our product line provides an easy way to sell any type of product via the web site with all important data flowing directly into the eTapestry database. It also automates all transaction processing while providing appropriate receipts and follow-up emails. Appropriately it is a one-stop shop for non-profits requiring this functionality!

Make It Right Foundation

National Railroad Museum

Hopefully we can help many of you make this additional relationship building and revenue generating tool come to life!

Q3 Documentation Survey Results

Justin Ward — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:25:00 GMT

The Q3 documentation survey results have been compiled. Here are some of the key stats:

We received 183 responses.
For our five overall rating categories - Accuracy, Completeness, Easy to Understand, Accessibility, and Usefulness - the two most frequent ratings were a 4 and 5 (out of 5).
Our highest overall rating category was ‘Accuracy’ (mean 4.30).
Our lowest overall rating category was ‘Easy to Understand’ (mean 3.98).
86.3% of survey respondents access documentation often or sometimes.
47.5% of survey respondents prefer to access documentation as user guide PDFs online.

Additionally, we have begun tracking user guide downloads with Google Analytics. This quarter we had 25,145 downloads from our User Guide pages. That number includes our user guides, video tutorials, and print tutorials. The number does not include hits on our hosted BBNC help files, which we track separately by topic.

And last but not least, each quarter we enter the respondents of our survey in a drawing for a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate. The Q3 winner for 2009 was Heather Flynn of Olive Crest Homes and Services for Abused Children. Congratulations, Heather!

To take the survey (and be entered in our 2009 fourth quarter drawing), click here. It takes only a few minutes. To send us feedback about our user guides or help file documentation at any time, email documentationcomments@blackbaud.com.

Using Social Media at the Conference

Chad Norman — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:00 GMT

OK, who's ready to get their #bbcon on?

Cool, I'm glad you're with me! Using social media at events feels like it has become the norm. That said, if you're still getting your feet wet when it comes to tweets and hashtags, a tech event like Blackbaud's Conferene for Nonprofits is a great place to practice what you've been learning.

Be sure to check out the Conference Social Media Guide for details on how to use Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, and other services while at the event. In the mean time, here are a few things you can do today that will help you get connected with other attendees, speakers, exhibitors, and Blackbaud staff.

RSVP to the BBCon Facebook page.
Follow @BBCon on Twitter.
Tell everyone you're coming to the Conference via Twitter: "I can't wait to be in Charleston at Blackbaud's Conference for Nonprofits! #bbcon".
Tweet using the #bbcon hashtag to join the conversation
Connect with some of the Conference speakers on Twitter, here and here.

As the conference progresses, you can share your photos via Flickr or useful links via Delicious (use the tag "bbcon" for both). We also have a Conference discussion forum available for ride sharing, hotel questions, and networking. And finally, we'll be rolling out content via this blog over the next couple weeks, so be sure to add the feed to your reader.

Oh, and while you're here, are you interested in some shameless promotion? If you want to learn more about how your nonprofit can use social media to meet your objectives, check out the two-part skill workshop I'm doing with Melanie Mathos. We're covering 50 social media tactics in the first session, followed by a 40-seat workshop where you'll get to practice what you learned.

I'll see you online!

Welcome Marianna Ridley to the Distance Learning Team

Diana Himes — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:26:00 GMT

The Distance Learning team is so excited to have a new member, so please join me in welcoming Marianna Ridley. Marianna's role is Distance Learning Designer and her primary responsibilities are to design and develop instructor-led and self-paced learning materials. In this post, we get to know Marianna! Question: What can you tell us about this picture? Answer: In late August, I started graduate school at Boise State University. I am not a big fan of college football, but my husband is, and he...(read more)

The CPA Technology Advisor Reviews The Financial Edge

Melanie Mathos — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:46:00 GMT

Blackbaud — The Financial Edge

From CPA Technology Magazine's Nov. 2009 Review of Not-for-Profit Accounting Programs.

The Financial Edge from Blackbaud is primarily designed for mid-sized to large nonprofit organizations that require transparency and accountability in their actions. However, the vendor has just recently released a small business version (see below). The Financial Edge is a powerful system hidden behind a deceptively simple user interface.

EASE OF USE/FLEXIBILITY-
Often, navigational ease is tied to program strength, with the rule being that the more powerful a product, the higher the level of difficulty encountered during use. Not so with The Financial Edge from Blackbaud. The main user interface is easily navigated, with little to no screen clutter. A drop-down menu at the top of the screen provides system function access, while product module access is found in the vertical menu to the left. The homepage can be easily customized, such as by adding features and functions used on a daily basis. Navigational arrows will take you back and forth between screens, with the name of the organization and the current module displayed immediately to the right.

The Financial Edge Dashboard allows users to monitor all activities and tasks. New panes can also be created to display on the dashboard, providing additional information such as graphs and charts or other critical data. Links to frequently used web pages can be easily created, and the Automatic Account Creation function simplifies the entering of account information.

MODULES/SCALABILITY-
Modules available in The Financial Edge include GL, Accounting Form, AP, Accounting Queue, AR, Advanced Budget Management, Advanced Security, Allocation Management, Budget Management, Cash Management, Cash Receipts, Consolidation Management, Electronic Funds Transfer, F9 reporting, Fixed Assets, PaperSave, Payroll, Point of Sale, Project, Grant and endowment Management, Visual Basic for Applications, Application Programming Interface, Student Billing, School Store Manager, WebPortal featuring WebPurchasing and WebInvoicing, along with integration to The Raiser’s Edge.

Smaller nonprofits will be interested to know that the vendor just introduced The Financial Edge for Small Offices. Designed for one to three users through a license or subscription/hosted model, The Financial Edge for Small Offices bundles six common modules together (GL; AP; Miscellaneous Cash Receipts; Project, Grant and Endowment Management; Budget Management; and Cash Management). The availability of this product makes The Financial Edge a truly scalable product from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Read the full review.

Query Qualities: Halloween Edition

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:57:00 GMT

Happy Halloween, everybody! Well, almost Halloween, anyway - there's still another day before it's time to light Jack O'Lanterns, put on costumes, and go trick-or-treating - but there's nothing wrong with celebrating a day early .

Halloween is a day for ghosts and goblins and other really scary things. One thing that scares people in The Raiser's Edge is duplicates in query. Like a movie monster, query duplicates leap out and scare you when you least expect them. You don't have to be afraid of query duplicates; they appear in your results because the record either meets the query criteria multiple times or the query output includes one or more one-to-many fields. When you save the query and use it in an export, report, or mailing, each record is included only once. In other words, your database isn't haunted with mysterious duplicates, it just looks that way.

Query is one of the most popular topic in The Raiser's Edge. Besides Why are there duplicates in the query results (which includes a demo video), here are the five most poular query solutions in Knowledgebase from last quarter:

Of course, those solutions can be pretty confusing if you don't understand the basics of query. If you're a new user, or are just rusty on the basics, you can take a free query class with Blackbaud Learn. Blackbaud Learn is an annual subscription that provides ongoing skill development and job training for software users. Course offerings range from basic training for beginners to advanced training for experienced users, and new classes are added every month.

The complimentary online class is called Query Essentials for The Raiser’s Edge. Enter the promo code “FreeQuery” on the registration form when you sign up and you'll be on your way!

Enjoy your Halloween weekend and remember to set your clocks back on hour!

Your October Forums Roundup

Katie Infinger — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:53:00 GMT

Here's your forum post roundup for October:

Your voice counts! Don't forget to vote on our FAWeb Support Roundtable Topic Poll!

Rotating show images in Patron Edge Online

Sean Long — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:30:00 GMT

My colleague, Matt Cook, recently showed off a cool Image cube he put together for Patron Edge Online. Take a look at the information below, it would be cool to see this put to work. The really cool thing about this is that each side of the cube can link to different things, so this could help drive interest in things like special events, classes, or whatever the creative minds in your marketing department can think up! As the cube is set up right now, it uses the loader.asp file to allow it to link directly to specific shows. Pretty cool!

Disclaimer: This will require you to do a small amount of coding. The example is pretty easy to follow if you are familiar with HTML, Javascript or other coding languages, but you won’t be able to contact support for assistance setting this up.

1. Create a new screen part on the page where you want the image to display (In this example, I’ll use Template 1)

· Type = Include

· File Name = imagecube.html

· Top, Left, Width, Height – position the element as desired, but you want it to be the size of your images for best resolution. I used 450,20,120,80

2. Grab the latest copy of the image cube library Note: There are literally thousands of cool jquery libraries out there, many of them dealing with images, this is just one that looked slick to me. Most are easy to use and would be interchangeable. Unzip the library into your PEOSite folder (by default, C:\Program Files\Blackbaud\The Patron Edge Online\PEOSite)

3. Open up your favorite text editor, create imagecube.html and drop it in your PEOSite folder

Here’s the code for my file:

<head><script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.imagecube.js"></script>
</head>
<div id="defaultCube" style="width: 120px; height: 80px; overflow: none;">
<a href="loader.asp?target=show.asp?shCode=64"><img src="images/shows/show64.jpg" alt="Show 64 Title" title="Show 64 Title" style="width: 100%; height=100%;"/></a>
<a href="loader.asp?target=show.asp?shCode=38"><img src="images/shows/show38.jpg" alt="Show 38 Title" title="Show 38 Title" style="width: 100%; height=100%;"/></a>
<a href="loader.asp?target=show.asp?shCode=19"><img src="images/shows/show19.jpg" alt="Show 19 Title" title="Show 19 Title" style="width: 100%; height=100%;"/></a>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$.imagecube.setDefaults({speed: 1000, pause: 6000});
$('#defaultCube').imagecube();
});
</script>
You’ll need to make a few changes. Namely, I referenced show codes in my sample database. You can generate your loader link as needed. Your images will also likely not be named show64, so update the img src reference as well as the alt and Title as needed. There are a lot of benefits to using Google’s jQuery library, but you can download your own if needed.

Try it out and leave a comment if this worked for you!

Upcoming Web Seminars 11/2 - 11/6

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:21:00 GMT

Several times a week, we offer free, hour-long web seminars on our website. The seminars usually focus on Blackbaud products or best practices for nonprofits.

Here are some of the web seminars coming up next week:

November 3:
Optimize your Website and Email Marketing Program with Blackbaud Sphere eMarketing, 1:00 p.m. ET: We will review examples of organizations who have leveraged their websites to improve their fundraising efforts through social media, online communities, and personal pages.

Building a Brand with Social Networks, 2:00 p.m. ET: Learn how you can assemble a large, active, social networking community.

Building Donor Loyalty with The Raiser’s Edge Solution, 2:00 p.m. ET: Join us to learn how The Raiser's Edge can help increase your productivity.

November 4:
Grow Your Support Online: An Overview of Blackbaud Sphere Grow, 1:00 p.m. ET:See how Blackbaud Sphere Grow offers the tools and training you need to succeed online.

November 6:
How to Build a Strong Planned Giving Program, 2:00 p.m. ET: Join us to learn about planned giving donors and their behavior in a slow economy.

Have a super weekend!

Mail Musings: Head of Household Processing

Douglas Clinton — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:53:00 GMT

Imagine that you are Mr. Belding, principal of Bayside High. It's time for you to send out the Class of 1993 alumni newsletter, and you want to make sure that it goes to each alumnus's address only once. For some of your alumni, that's easy - Jesse Spano, A.C. Slater, and Lisa Turtle all married non-Bayside alums, while Samuel "Screech" Powers unaccountably single. There are some exceptions, such as Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski, who married each other. Zack and Kelly aren't the only members of the Class of 1993 who married each other, and you want to make sure that alumni households receive only one copy of the newsletter without sorting the mailing by hand.

The way you can do this with The Raiser's Edge is by using Head of Household Processing, which excludes duplicate spouses from a mailing. Zack and Kelly and other constituents linked on the Spouse button will receive only one copy of the newsletter as long as you choose the correct option in Head of Household processing.

The default head of household is the constituent on which the spouse was added. For example, you added Zack and Kelly as constituents when they graduated from Bayside High. When they got married in Las Vegas, you opened Zack's record, clicked the Spouse button and linked to Kelly's record. As a result Zack defaulted as the head of household. Had you added Zack as the spouse from Kelly's record, she would have been the default head of household. The option 'This individual is the Head of Household' is only available if two constituents are linked on the Spouse button. If the spouse on the Spouse button is not a constituent, the option is not available.

Where the Head of Household settings pay off is in Mail. The options in the Head of Household panel on the General tab of Mail functions break down like this:

Mail only to constituents marked 'Head of Household': Selecting this option mails only to the record marked as head of household. In this case, the mailing would go to Zack.

Mail to first constituent found: Selecting this option mails to the first spouse it processes and skips the linked spouse. Because the Class of 1993 query is sorted alphabetically, Kelly's record is processed first, Mail includes her record and skips Zack.

Mail to both constituents separately: Selecting this option includes both spouses, for those time you want both Zack and Kelly to receive a mailing.

Head of household processing only applies if both spouses are selected for the mailing. In other words, even though Zack is the head of household, if your query only contains Kelly, head of household processing doesn't apply and Kelly gets the mailing.

An important consideration for mailings like this is to assign an addressee or salutation that includes both constituents, such as "Mr. Zack Morris and Mrs. Kelly Kapowski, Class of 1993". For more on that topic, check out our past posts on addressees/salutations.

This information is also in Knowledgebase solution BB520345.

Looking in the Rear View Mirror – Part 2

Jay Love — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:49:00 GMT

Even though I am not on vacation this week, I wanted to continue a nostalgic look into eTapestry. When one mentions marketing and advertising around our office usually Steve Rusche is not far behind. I think you enjoy his parade of our advertising. The Non-Profit world sure seemed to like many of them!

Last week John Moore gave you a glimpse of the early days of the eTapestry application. This week we look back at some or our early eTapestry ads, which helped get us the exposure needed to launch our fledgling company.

The first eTapestry ads were literally "homemade". It didn’t take us long to realize that we needed something a little different if we were going to get recognized in the very competitive fundraising software sector. So we began a relationship with a local advertising agency, Young and Laramore, to help us build our advertising.

We had a number of challenges in the early days. First, we had a radically different product for that time – a web-based database. Second, we were the new kid on the block and had to battle the skepticism some folks had of a start-up organization. So our ads needed to convey our unique product and at the same time make us look like a professional, established company.

As you can see, we took a very creative approach to our ads. We wanted them to be eye-catching, simple, different, and with a little humor. It fit our company. We were – and continue today – a group that likes to look at things a little differently and to have some fun along the way as well. Here's a sampling of some of our ads over the years.

This is one of several ads that invited folks to attend one of the first "online seminars". Today online seminars are a common tool for all types of services.

This ad series highlighted the differences between "traditional software" and our web-based, online software.

A more recent ad promoted an offer to get organizations up and running quickly.

Our most recent ads continue the eTapestry tradition of fun, different ads with a specific message. In this case, illustrating the symbiotic nature of the relationship we have with clients. Our success depends on their success.

I hope you have enjoyed a brief look at our advertising history. You can continue to expect something different from eTapestry in the future. We are already at work on something special for 2010!

Steve Rusche
Chief Operation Officer

Press Release: Blackbaud Announces The Ohio State University Will Use its CRM Solution to Unite Development, Outreach, and Engagement Efforts

Melanie Mathos — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:55:00 GMT

Charleston, S.C. (October 28, 2009) - Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB), the leading global provider of software and related services designed specifically for nonprofit
organizations, today announced that The Ohio State University has selected Blackbaud Enterprise CRM^{^TM} as its new fundraising system.

"We are pleased The Ohio State University has selected Blackbaud Enterprise CRM as its fundraising technology platform for development and constituent engagement," said Marc Chardon, Blackbaud's chief executive officer. "By selecting Blackbaud Enterprise CRM, the University is investing in a future-proof platform that will bring unparalleled innovation to the higher education sector at a time when development, constituent engagement, and organization-wide visibility are critical."

Ohio State University has over 440,000 living alumni and enrollment of over 63,000 students on all campuses. The University selected Blackbaud Enterprise CRM to bring best technology and business practices to its major and planned giving, marketing and communications, Internet marketing, prospect research and management, and business intelligence across the University.

10/28 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:37:00 GMT

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Growing Your Email List

Naomi Hamilton — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:28:00 GMT

Here at Blackbaud Pacific, we've recently launched a new email service offering called Blackbaud Reach.

Blackbaud Reach is a consulting package designed to help your organisation reach the right audience at the right time with targeted emails and newsletters.

I have had the opportunity to speak to a variety of Blackbaud clients while developing this offering, and I have been struck by the amount of organisations who tell me that they would love to improve their email marketing, but who have little or no email list.

Growing an email list should be an ongoing priority for all organisations, as at least 5% of any email list will likely be 'churning' (or unsubscribing) at any time.

The easiest way to start growing your email list is to start asking your audience for their email addresses at every touch point you have. This extends from beyond just the online environment to every single touch point you have with your audience.

I have started keeping a basic list of the places you should consider asking for email addresses to grow your email list. This is only intended as a starting point, so please make a copy and expand and grow on this as required:

Capture subscriptions on all forms on your site
Give users the option to opt-in to your list in all transactional emails
Encourage your existing audience to forward your emails and content to friends/family
Promote your email lists through your Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as any other social media accounts you have
Always ask in face-to-face meetings if anyone would like to join your email list
Put subscription links in your email signatures
Link to your email registration options from every page of your web site (and always list the benefits of subscribing)
Promote your subscriptions via any RSS feed you distribute
Include subscription forms or web site links on all printed materials (including business cards)
Ensure that you have such engaging content on your web site and online aggregators that people deliberately seek out ways to keep up-to-date with your new content!

You also need to ensure that once people subscribe to your list, they have reason to stay subscribed. You need to manage your email frequency to ensure that you are not threatening your subscribers with information overload, but you need to be staying in touch enough for them to remember who your organisation is. Always remember that you are competing for a share of voice against more media than just the emails of your competitors.

Once you have promoted your list effectively, online and off, you really need to start looking at why your audience should give you their email address in the first place. What do you have to offer them that's worth them giving you their email address for? Have you focused on the benefits and special offers that come as being a part of your list? Why should people choose to subscribe to your email services and not those of another organisation?

Once your list starts growing, you can then start to consider exactly how you wish to engage your audience, and what type of emails you will be using to do this. You may even wish to start up multiple lists depending on the type of subscriptions you plan on offering. Two of the most obvious starting points are eNewsletters, and eDMs (electronic direct mail).

I will touch on how you can use these two different email types to engage and motivate your audience in my next post.

For information on the new Blackbaud Reach offering for Blackbaud Pacific clients, visit this Brainshark.

Blackbaud Learn Provides Training Options for Ongoing Skill Development

Melissa Dodge — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:28:00 GMT

Blackbaud, Inc. (Nasdaq: BLKB), announced the availability of Blackbaud Learn^TM, a subscription-based training program that provides ongoing skill development and job knowledge training to nonprofits. With new classes every month, a role-based curriculum, and exclusive sessions on strategy and best practices, Blackbaud has made training more accessible to the nonprofit organizations it serves. Blackbaud is offering a free training session, Query Essentials for The Raiser's Edge, as a sample of the instructor-led courseware from Blackbaud Learn that explores basic querying techniques.

Blackbaud Learn is available as a renewable annual subscription, starting at $1,000 to best meet the needs and budget of any organization. Training packages are offered at three different levels with classes spanning fundamental skills development to advanced coursework. All three Learn packages include access to exclusive nonprofit strategy sessions, on-demand software skills lessons, and role-based classes. Blackbaud Learn is available in three different subscription levels:

Learn: All the essential online classes a staff of any size needs to enable success, including introductory classes and coursework devoted to building critical skills.
Learn More: All the basic online classes included in Learn, plus the entire staff gets unlimited access to all advanced online classes such as volunteer management and complex importing and exporting.
Learn Everything: All-access pass to everything included in Learn and Learn More, including critical skills lessons, advanced coursework, and unlimited registrations at regional classes throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Read the full Press Release.